


The Ranting Game

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domesticity in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Gen, No Slash, Team Free Will 2.0 (Supernatural), Unless you want to believe there is, bored games, in which case sure pick a ship, pun intended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28905120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: What does YOUR family do when bored? Bunker “bored” games.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 28





	The Ranting Game

**Author's Note:**

> If I’ve posted this before, I apologize. I can’t find it in my works, and I can’t remember what inspired it. Just found it sitting in a folder. So...enjoy?

The ranting game had gone on far too many years. Dean and Sam had played it nearly so long as they had been settling things with rocks, paper and scissors. Neither could really remember the first time one of them had walked into a room and said to the other, “Dude? Don’t get me started.”

The response was always a grin and the first thought to pop into the mind of the other brother. Today, it was Sam who looked up from his lore book. “Why is it that the bad guys are always real, and the good guys are always bad? Go.”

Dean dropped the groceries onto the counter, and began unpacking them. “Oh, dude, don’t get me started! I mean, seriously? All over the world, all through history, you going to tell me there’s never been one of the mythical good guy monsters? Angels and fairies are the worst of them! What’s more of a good guy than angels and fairies? And they’re dicks! All of them!”

Sam burst into laughter as Castiel stopped in the doorway. He was frowning at Dean. “All of them?” he said dryly. 

“All of them!” Dean sniggered. He pointed at Castiel in accusation. “Even the nerd angels. And fairies. Man, don’t even get me started on fairies!” He grinned at his brother. “Go!”

Sam groaned, but took over the rant as he was meant to do. “Dude, don’t even get me started,” he laughed. “Fairies are the worst. That leprechaun we ran into? Leprechauns are supposed to be the ones who bring good fortune! From him, we got the full alien encounter! The lore on the back of kids’ cereals has it all wrong. Leprechauns in the real world are magically malicious.”

Castiel looked somewhat lost. “Alien leprechauns?”

Sam closed his book and caught a beer Dean tossed to him. “Oh, yeah. And dragons! Don’t get me started on dragons!” He popped open his drink and nodded at his brother. “Go.”

“Man,” Dean sighed dramatically, “you had to go and bring up dragons. Don’t get me started.” He handed a second beer to the confused angel, and opened his own. “Greedy little shits. I ever tell you about the time I had dragon gold? Don’t get me started on how little hunting pays. If it weren’t for fake credit cards and poker, we would’ve starved trying to save all those people! Pay sucks! Go.”

Sam winked at Castiel. “Aw, dude, don’t get me started. I mean, is it worth it? Sure. But it’s not like there’s time off. It’s not like hunting comes with dental. Go.”

The older man rolled his eyes. “Dental? Really?” But he rose to the challenge. “Don’t get me started about dental. You know Garth was a dentist? Killed the tooth fairy.”

Sam made a face. “Did he really?”

His brother shrugged. “But don’t get me started.”

Castiel was shaking his head now. “What have I walked in on?” he wondered. “It feels as though you two are speaking in code.”

Sam laughed. He had been getting frustrated and weary with his research, but that stupid kids’ game of theirs had made the whole kitchen brighter somehow. “Just an old road trip game, man. Something to pass the time. Dean and me have been playing it since we were-I don’t know-like eight and twelve or something.”

“Being upset about random things is a game,” Castiel clarified doubtfully. 

Dean smacked his friend on the back. “It is when you got nothing else to do but watch light posts go by or wait for Dad to come back from the truck stop with hot dogs and shower tickets.”

Sam grimaced. “Can’t say I miss that part.”

“Don’t get me started,” Dean agreed. Then he turned to Castiel. “What, angels don’t play dumb games when they’re bored?”

“No. Being bored isn’t something which any celestial would admit to, since I can only imagine how the garrison captains would have solved that predicament for us.”

“Lucifer used to whine about it in the Cage,” Sam grumbled. 

“Lucifer was a very singular angel.” Castiel looked thoughtful for a moment. “Perhaps there is something…”

This caught Dean’s attention. “Yeah? What’s an angel game look like? Watching paint dry?”

“Why would that relieve boredom? Once one has experienced the phenomenon of the desiccation of colored varnish, it is unlikely to hold much interest for the witness a second time.”

Sam tipped his beer back, then smiled. “Go on, Cas. What game would angels play to pass the time?”

“It is of a philosophical nature.”

“Come on, Cas,” Dean prompted. He waved them both out of the kitchen, and carried his bottle with him as he went. They settled at the long table by the observatory, and Castiel continued. 

“One of us will ask the other a question beginning with the words, ‘what if?’ Then the other would need to determine if the one thing which was now different would change the universe in any drastic way.”

“Told you it would be nerdy,” Dean scoffed. 

But Sam was interested. “What’s an example?”

Castiel smiled at him somewhat smugly. “What if Uriel had been the one to pull Dean out of Perdition instead of me?”

Two sets of green eyes widened. 

“Shit,” Dean breathed. “That’s…”

Castiel gave him a smirk. “You appreciate me more suddenly, don’t you?” 

Sam began to cackle as he watched his brother struggle with that scenario. 

“What’s funny?”

He looked up and found Jack watching them curiously. “Come join us, kiddo. Remember asking me the other day about how plants eat?”

The child sat next to Dean and Castiel and across from Sam. “Yes. You explained that, while some consume bugs and things, most get their energy from the sun. Like Superman.”

Dean pointed his beer at Jack. “Exactly like Superman.”

Sam and Castiel made identically exasperated faces. “That’s not-Whatever. So, Jack, what if all the green in the plants around the world were suddenly purple?”

Alarm filled Jack’s features. “Has that happened?”

“No,” Castiel soothed quickly. “Not that we know of. It is a hypothetical situation, to elicit a-“

“It’s just for fun, kid. What do you think would happen?”

Jack relaxed visibly at Dean’s explanation. “I see. It’s like a game.” 

Sam sipped at his beer, then slid it across to Jack, who raised it to his lips before launching into a theoretical description of the chaos which would befall the world if plants lost their all-important color. Sam watched the other two as they countered points and then proposed new scenarios which were mostly nonsense-“Yeah, but I’ve been a dog, and I’m telling you, Sam would be the worst pet ever! For one thing, think of the shedding!”-and he realized just how content he was with his weird little family. But don’t get him started.


End file.
